Taste: Celebrating Bourbon

Quick, what do you get when you combine a modest Kentucky community with a large crop of enthusiastic visitors—some coming from as far as Japan—and a whole lot of bourbon? If you said “chaos,” you’re wrong, although understandably so since, admittedly, in some quarters, bourbon has a pretty spotty reputation.

But if your answer was “the Kentucky Bourbon Festival,” then you’re absolutely right, and probably a pretty savvy whiskey drinker, to boot. Because as much as the Bluegrass State’s annual celebration of everything bourbon has grown in size, content and quality over the past decade, it still flies pretty much under the radar of the general public. For the spirits aficionado, however, it’s easily one of the most enjoyable festivals anywhere.

Unlike most drinking fests, the annual Bourbon Festival in Bardstown, just south of Louisville, is less a tasting event than a celebration. And there’s a multitude of reasons to celebrate bourbon, foremost among them being that America’s best known spirit has come a long way from its “shot-and-a-beer” days. In fact, just as the beer in that iconic pairing has evolved from a basic lager into a wealth of options—from pale ale to bock and porter—so has bourbon grown from a rough-and-ready brown spirit into a finely structured drink with many facets and faces. Never forgetting, of course, that at its heart it’s still corn liquor.

CORN-FED GOODNESS

The basics of bourbon are straightforward. Regulations governing its production require that any spirit called bourbon must be made from at least 51-percent corn, although most use considerably more, supplemented by barley malt and usually rye, but sometimes wheat. Also mandated is that bourbons be distilled to no more than 160 Proof (80-percent alcohol), enter the barrel at less than 125 Proof and spend a minimum of 24 months in new, charred American white oak. Finally, although it’s a myth that all bourbon hails from the Kentucky, some 95 percent of it is distilled and aged in the state, most in or near Bardstown, thus earning the right to be called “Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey.” (Another rule declares that the spirit cannot be adulterated in any way between still and barrel, which is why the charcoal-filtered Jack Daniels is a Tennessee whiskey and not a bourbon.)

Now you might ask why—if all bourbons start from the same basic premise—some are ordinary brands sold at a fairly standard price while others soar into the stratosphere of expense. It’s a legitimate gripe, one that has a simple, two-word explanation: the warehouse.

As with other aged spirits, what happens in the warehouse is key to bourbon’s taste, since it’s there that the Kentucky sun and American oak bestow upon the whiskey a considerable amount of its character. Barrels in key parts of the warehouse—where dramatic temperature variances can have profound effects on the spirit’s development—are hand-selected by the master distiller for “small batch” or “single barrel” bourbons, while others are carefully positioned for aging much longer than the mandated two years. In either instance, the interaction of whiskey, wood and temperature draws the line between a merely good bourbon and a great one, effectively transforming simple corn into a spirit of exceptional style and grace. Which brings us back to the Bourbon Festival.

A SNEAK TASTE

Each September, Kentucky’s distilleries use their annual event to showcase their best wares, and to trot out anything new they have in development. In 2005, Festival Chairman and Four Roses Master Distiller Jim Rutledge and I enjoyed a glass of his floral, assertively spicy Four Roses Single Barrel; Kentucky’s youngest Master Distiller, Barton’s Greg Davis, extolled the virtues of his rye-accented 1792 Ridgemont Reserve, the fest’s “Official Toasting Bourbon;” and the good folks at Heaven Hill trotted out their new Bernheim Original Wheat Whiskey, which—while not a bourbon—is nonetheless a well-balanced, moderately sweet and profoundly interesting exploration of American whiskey. Just missing the party was the very new Woodford Reserve Four Grain, a unique bottling that boasts a flavorful mix of fruit, toffee and spice.

As for what to look for this year, according to the advance skinny from John Hansell (publisher of definitive whiskey journal the Malt Advocate), the year’s most interesting innovations are coming from Buffalo Trace in the form of their new, half-bottle sized “Experimental Collection” series. Also expected on the market by fall, he adds, are a well-aged rye whiskey from Heaven Hill and, although its presence shouldn’t be expected in Kentucky, a new “special reserve” Tennessee whiskey from George Dickel.

But regardless of what comes down the pike, it’s a fair bet that there’ll be much to celebrate this September in Bardstown, and even more to toast with.

This year’s Kentucky Bourbon Festival takes place from Sept. 13-17. Info: KyBourbonFestival.com.